The global market for plastics continues to grow due to their physical properties and benefits such as light weight, reduction of food waste, durability and cost. After being used, plastics should be separated in order to be subject to the most appropriate waste treatment processes. This is increasingly difficult and inefficient due to, for example, consumers' inaccurate identification of the appropriate types of plastics for recycling. Other plastic types, such as polystyrene, can even not be recycled if they have traces of food. Despite the worldwide efforts for degradation or recycling, large amounts of mixtures of plastics and other polymers end up in landfills or are used for the generation of energy. These methods lead to environmental contamination through the production of CO2 or due to plastics reaching water courses and the sea where they persist and become toxic for the whole food chain. Novel biotechnological approaches should be applied for the sustainable biological degradation of mixtures of recalcitrant and degradable plastics.